Brown, Lori Jean, 1968-2009-03-052009-03-052008-12https://hdl.handle.net/1794/8704ix, 105 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number.In The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir uses enslavement to the species to shape her concepts of animality, the female body, and immanence. The connection of these ~oncepts to reproductive processes links them together in problematic ways. Beauvoir responds by diminishing the ontological force of the female body. I begin this thesis by showing how varying degrees of enslavement to the species detennine sexual difference and the position of organisms on the evolutionary ladder. Next, I illustrate how animality, immanence, and the female body are closely linked together by their similar relationship to the species. I follow with the claim that Beauvoir's notion of the human existent requires a distancing from the realm of immanence and the power of reproduction through the risking of one's life. Finally, I demonstrate how Beauvoir downplays the ontological weight of the female body in her positing of early woman as an existent.en-USThesis